1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a technology to restrict use of an image processing apparatus, and more particularly to an image processing apparatus, an image processing system, and a computer-readable recording medium thereof, in which utilization restriction is effectively and flexibly conducted with respect to an image processing function.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, due to increase of environment consideration and a higher requirement of expense reduction, in organizations including many members such as government and public offices, universities, companies, and the like, technologies have been installed in which an apparatus is restricted to be used at a group unit such as a department, a section, or the like, or for each member as one unit. For example, as a print system, an upper limit value is set to limit the number of sheets for each group including multiple users or each user in an office. It is restricted to conduct prints greater than the upper limit value. Otherwise, an alarm is displayed for a user to comply with the upper limit value.
For example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2004-102356 discloses a print system corresponding to a network, which includes an authentication server and a print restriction server. Authentication information for each user, the number of print result sheets, and an upper limit number of sheets to print are registered to the authentication server. The print restriction server acquires the authentication information corresponding to a user, the number of the print result sheets, and the upper limit number of sheets. When a print job is issued from a client terminal, the print restriction server determines whether or not a print is permitted based on the authentication information of the user and the number of the upper limit number of sheets. According to a technology disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2004-102356, a user can recognize the number of remaining sheets allowed to print, and it is informed to the user about what time a print is restricted so that the user can be always conscious about unnecessary paper outputs.
Moreover, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2005-271317 discloses an image forming apparatus which receives an input of a user ID when performing a copy process, inquires a department ID of a department to which a user belongs by sending the received user ID to a department management server, conducts the copy process by the department ID received from the department management server, and registers the number of copy sheets by associating with the department ID. According to a technology disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2005-271317, the number of print sheets can be counted for each group.
Furthermore, in a case in which an administrator manually sets the upper limit value for each user, settings can be defined in detail. However, it is complicated work to determine the upper limit value for each user in the same group by considering a group upper limit value, and it is not practical if the group is a large group. That is, if the number of members being registered to a group is increased, it is complicated work to conduct detailed settings in response to a behavior of each user so as not to exceed a group upper limit value and not to be extremely lower than the group upper limit value. This complicated work requires a significant amount of workload. Moreover, in a case in which a user is additionally registered, a user registration is deleted, the group upper limit value is changed, the group upper limit value is required to be set again. Thus, the workload of the administrator is further increased.
Moreover, for example, in a case in which the upper limit value is set for the number of print sheets, in addition to multiple setting items for a single-sided print, a double-sided print, an integrated print to print two or more pages in one side of a sheet, and a black and white/color print, managements concerning use of toner and a use amount of sheets are required.
Moreover, under the upper limit value set for a user, the user does not always print a similar amount of sheets in a certain term. Temporarily, the user needs to print out sheets greater than the upper limit value. The above-described technologies cannot flexibly correspond to this requirement.
On the other hand, in a viewpoint of the administrator, there are many demands such that the upper limit value for use of the image forming apparatus is strictly managed, such that the upper limit value is managed as a rough target to improve user recognition, or such that the upper limit value is flexibly managed in a short term and the upper limit value may be achieved as a target in a long term. However, the above-described technologies cannot realize a flexible and effective use restriction of functions for each group or each user in an organization.
That is, as described above, if the administrator attempts to manage a use amount concerning use of functions of the image forming apparatus in detail and complicatedly, a workload of the administrator is increased.